Extra Kill - Dell Shannon (13 page)

Walsh's expression took on the glazed look of one
trying to recapture a past time in photographic reproduction. He said
almost at once, "No, sir. I got that piece clear, just
remembering it by the lightning, now. This is how it went, see:
there's the lightning, just after the door opened there—and I
looked up, and kind of automatically started to count seconds, the
way you do, you know—and it was close, it wasn't quite three
seconds until the thunder—and then that door closed. And right
after that—yes, I've got it now, funny how little things come back
to you—I heard the other apartment door close, and that was Joe and
the landlady coming out of Number Three. And almost right away, Joe
opened the car door and got in beside me and said, ‘O.K., let's
go.' " Walsh looked at Mendoza triumphantly, anxiously. "Is
that the kind of thing you want, sir? I don't see what it has to do
with—"

"
Oyé, oiga, frene!—Qué
se yo?
" Mendoza sat up abruptly. "Wait
a minute now, you were driving? Bartlett got in beside you, you
said—you being behind the wheel."

"Why, yes, sir," said Walsh. "We
generally change round like that, you know, if there're two of you on
patrol, one drives the first half of the tour, the other the second
half. That night, we changed after the coffee break, and Joe took the
wheel."

Mendoza looked at him, but he didn't see Frank
Walsh's square, honest, amiable face at all. He saw that ugly
courtyard, on that dark rainy night—and a murderer opening a door
(all right, no evidence,
nada absolutamente
,
to back that up, but it made a picture, it filled in an empty
space)—and being confronted with that black-and-white squad car,
unexpected and so close; and in that moment, one great flash of
lightning lighting the whole scene—pinpointing it in time and
space. What picture in a murderer's mind of that one moment? A
uniformed cop at the wheel of that car, looking up alertly—apparently
toward the open apartment door. And Mrs. Bragg's porch light shining
full on the front of the squad car and its L.A. police number.

That was all. That was enough. Mendoza's patrol days
being far behind, that one little fact hadn't occurred to him, that a
pair of cops in a squad car changed around at the wheel. The ordinary
civilian wouldn't think of it.

So, there was the answer: and say it wasn't backed up
by any kind of evidence the D.A. would look at—Mendoza knew surely
it must be the right answer. All somebody had known, had been afraid
of, was the driver of the squad car number such-and·such. It didn't
matter then—the idea was that Twelvetrees should vanish, that he'd
never be found in his makeshift grave down that kitchen trap—it
didn't matter if the driver saw and remembered a face. Not if things
went the way somebody planned. But just in case Twelvetrees was
found, in case questions were asked, and the driver of that car was
able to identify a face—Panic? Impulse? And a very damned lucky
shot—or a very damned skillful one . . . into the wrong man.

And, after all, Frank Walsh hadn't seen whoever stood
in that open door.
 
 

EIGHT

"Every other country in the world," said
Alison, clutching Mendoza's arm, "puts decent lights in night
clubs and bars. People go to such places to read newspapers and hold
philosophical discussions over their drinks. Or at least so I'm given
to understand. Why are Americans condemned to these caves of
darkness, like moles?"

"It's the Puritan background," said
Mendoza, stumbling over a pair of outstretched legs and apologizing.
"We still suffer from the influence of all those high-minded,
earnest people who had the idea that anything a little bit enjoyable,
from a glass of wine to a hand of cards—anything that makes life a
bit more amusing—is necessarily sinful. It's a holdover—ah,
haven," as the waiter's dim figure stopped and hovered in the
gloom ahead, indicating a table or booth, impossible to tell which.
On cautious investigation it proved to be a booth, and he slid into
it beside the vague slender figure that was Alison—at least, it
smelled of the spiced-carnation and faintly aphrodisiac scent that
said Alison. "—A holdover from the days when those righteous
old colonists felt seven kinds of devil if they let the cider get
hard, you know .... Straight rye," he added to the waiter, "and
I think a glass of sherry for the lady."

"Yes. It's a great pity, all I can say,"
said Alison. "I expect you're right, and how silly."

"On the contrary," said Mendoza, "very
good business. You make people feel there's something a little
devilish about a thing, they'll fall over themselves to buy it. Human
nature. Prohibition created more drinkers than we'd ever had before.
Same principle as banning a novel—everybody reads it to find out
why."

"It's still silly. I can't find my cigarettes,
have you got one?"

"Only," said Mendoza, groping in his
pocket, offering her the pack and lighting one for her, "because
you and I were born at par. I got this from Sergeant Farquhar—it's
a Scottish proverb, haven't you heard it, and you half Scots? ‘Some
people are born two drinks under. They need the drinks to get up to
normal?"

"Certainly I've heard it, and my father used to
say that redheads—oh, well, never mind, it wasn't very genteel now
I come to think."

"If it was about redheads," said Mendoza as
the waiter brought their drinks, "I might guess what it was."

"I wouldn't put it past you. Well, in polite
language it was to the effect that they're born two drinks over. And
he was, certainly. Did I ever tell you about the time he challenged
the governor of Coahuila to a duel? It was over a dam up in the
Sierra Mojadas—the governor kept saying if Providence had intended
people to have the water, the dam would have been created in the
first six days, you know, but as it was the whole thing was immoral
and contrary to God's wishes—I've never seen Dad madder—but in
the end the governor backed down and they never did get to the duel.
I think myself somebody told the governor the
pedazo
rojo norteamericano
was a crack shot."

"These effeminate Latins, all cowards,"
said Mendoza. “
Salud y pesetas!
"
He tasted the rye. "You and I are the unconventional ones, we
don't need this to enjoy life .... And another thing about these
places," he added over a roll of snare drums, "if they can
persuade you to drink enough they can save a lot of money on what
they call entertainment—anything goes if you're sufficiently high."

A blue spotlight circled a painfully thin girl in
silver lamé, on the little low platform at one end of the room,
above what was revealed as a five- or six-piece band. On the edges of
the light, white blurs of faces, tables crowded close. A tenor sax
spoke mournfully, and the girl clasped her hands at her breast and
began to moo nasally about missing her naughty baby.

"Oh dear," said Alison. The spotlight,
moving with the singer, dimly showed them the Voodoo Club: fake
handdrums and shrunken heads for wall—décor, zebra-patterned
plastic on chairs and banquettes, and the waiters all Negroes in
loincloths. There was also a postage-stamp dance floor.

"Yes," said Mendoza. "Hardly combining
business with pleasure. We'll get to the business as soon as the
waiter shows up again." Which he did as the girl stopped mooing
and the spotlight blinked out. The band went into a soft blues and a
few couples groped their way onto the dance floor.

"Re-peat, suh?"

"No, thanks. Tell me,"—Mendoza flicked
his lighter over the blown-up print of Twelvetrees—"have you
ever seen this man in here?" The waiter bent closer and looked
at the print. In the little circle of unsteady light, he was very
black, very Negroid; out of the dark his hand came up to finger his
jaw, a long, slender hand with oddly intellectual-looking narrow
fingers. "Well, I jus' couldn't say offhand, suh. An' we ain'
supposed to gossip about customahs, y' know."

"Just take another look, and be sure."

"Don' know nuthin' 'bout him, suh. Anythin'
else I can do for you, suh?"

Mendoza shook his head. "So, we'll have to get
at it official," he said when the man had gone, leaving the
check behind as a gentle hint. "See the manager. I don't suppose
there's anything in it, or not much, but you never know—he must
have had acquaintances in other circles than the Temple. By the
little we've got on him so far, I think he looked on that just the
way the Kingmans do, as a soft racket, and he'd hardly find the sect
members to his social taste. Except for Mona Ferne—and that was for
other reasons. I could wish his landlady had been the prying,
suspicious kind who took more notice of his callers. Oh, well. Are
you finished with that? Let's go."

They groped their way out to the better-lighted
foyer, and Mendoza reclaimed his hat and Alison's coat from the check
girl, paid the cashier. As he held out the coat for her, the slab
door in the opposite wall opened and there emerged a slender little
man who looked exactly like a film gang—boss, from his navy shirt
and white tie to his fancy gray punched-pigskin shoes. He had black
hair slicked back into a drake's tail, cold black eyes, and a
cigarette dangling out of one corner of his mouth. Behind him was a
big black Negro wrapped in a white terry robe like a boxer between
rounds.

"This them?" snapped the gang-boss.

"Yes, sir," said the Negro.

"O.K.," said the gang-boss, walking up to
Mendoza, "what you asking questions for, buddy? Who are you? Got
any identification on you? What's this all about?"

"I told you, Luis," said Alison, sliding
behind him. "Every time I go out with you in new stockings—why
you drag me to these dens of iniquity—"

"Hey," said the gang-boss angrily, "what
you talking about, lady, den of iniquity? We don't pay a grand a year
for a liquor license to go foolin' around with that kind of stuff!
Just what the hell—"

"You're the manager—good, just the man I want
to see," and Mendoza brought out his credentials.

"Oh, police," said the gang-boss, and his
toughness fell away from him like a cloak. "Gee, I'm sure sorry,
Lieutenant, but I didn't know! Anything at all I can do for you—"

"This man." Mendoza gave him the print.
"Regular in here? Or a casual?"

"Yeah, well—" The manager rubbed his ear
and exchanged a glance with the Negro. "It's him all right,
isn't it?"

"I thought so," said the Negro tranquilly
in an accentless, rather amused tone. "I didn't know you were
police either, Lieutenant. Sorry, but one way and another I thought
Mr. Stuart ought to hear about it."

"You better come into my office," said
Stuart abruptly. "You too, Johnny." He led them into a
little square room furnished in excellent modern taste. "Sit
down. Offer you anything to drink?"

"No, thanks." Mendoza glanced from him to
the Negro quizzically.

"I'll apologize," said the latter, "for
the—er—costume, sir. In the dark in there, it's one thing, but
you feel a little naked out here, you know."

"Customers, they go for the damndest things,"
said Stuart. "Not that that was my idea—I only manage the
place. Excuse me, this is Johnny Laidlaw, your waiter."

"You know how it is," said the big Negro
apologetically, "we're sort of expected to stay in character on
a job like this—"

"Matter of fact," said Stuart, "unless
the bomb falls or something, this time next year it'll be Dr.
Laidlaw. Right now he's got more schooling than I ever had, which
don't necessarily say he's any smarter, but anyway I guess his
evidence is as good as mine."

"A medical degree runs into money these days,"
said Laidlaw amiably, "and you'd be surprised at the size of
some of the tips. But this isn't getting to what you want to know.
Mr. Stuart, I guess your part of it ought to come first."

"There's your scientific-trained mind,"
said Stuart. "Well, it's like this, Lieutenant. I just took over
here about six months ago, see. The guy who'd been managing the
joint, Whalen his name was, Andy Whalen, well, Mr. Goldstein—he's
the owner—he found he wasn't leveling, there was rebates to
wholesalers and that kind of thing. So Whalen got the heave-ho and I
came in. O.K. Well, I hadn't been here very long—some time in
September, wasn't it, Johnny?"

"September the twelfth," said Laidlaw.

"Yeah, well, Johnny comes in one night and says
a customer's kicking up a row—it was about midnight I remember—and
so I go out front to settle it. And here's this guy here,” he
tapped the print, "raising hell over his check. He's just
leaving, see, he's got this blonde dame with him—Johnny says he'd
seen them in here before—and when he gets the check he don't like
it. I say, what's the beef, and he says can he talk to me private.
Now that I don't like so good, because it usually means the guy's
caught short on cash and wants to leave his watch or something—but
what can you do, I say O.K. and bring him in here. And first thing he
says is, ‘What's with Whalen?' When he hears Whalen's out, he gets
mad all over again. He says Whalen's a pal of his, always made him a
cut price, see. I says that's one of the reasons Whalen's out, and I
pointed out to him that I'm no pal, and it's a shame he's stuck for
more than he expected, but just one of those things, and what about
the thirty-four something he owes? Same time, if you get me, I did
think it was kind of funny. I didn't know Whalen, but what the boys
here've said, he wasn't no good-time Charlie who'd let his friends in
for free."